Book of Heroes

From the dust jacket:

Here is an exhilarating and inspiring book that fills a long-felt want.

Biography written for children has become very popular, with book after book pouring off the presses. Each of these books, however, deals with a different man or woman, from George Washington to Madame Chiang Kai-shek.

In A Book of Heroes, on the other hand, the child has a chance to get acquainted quickly, but intimately, with nineteen different great personalities, legendary and historical, from the glorious past. To this glorious past, a part of our own heritage. Dorothy Heiderstadt opens a door. And through that door come trooping kings and queens, saints and barbarians, patriots and explorers, soldiers and sailors. All come alive, so vividly does she tell her stories; all walk the earth again, in their own times, not dim giant figures, but familiar in their homes, among their friends and enemies.

Here is Pericles, ruler of Athens, handsome and stately in his rich, embroidered robe, stopping to talk to a poor family by the road. "Come along!" he says. "Aren't you going to the play?"

Charlemagne, the great emperor, takes off his crown to play schoolmaster. Peter the Great snips off the beards of his nobles. Christian of Denmark jumps out of his carriage and climbs a cathedral spire that is leaning dangerously to one side, to see that it is properly braced. Nansen flies over the snow on his dog sledge trying to get to the North Pole.

And here are dear, familiar stories we cannot do without–King Alfred dreaming while the cakes burn, William Tell drawing his great crossbow, Robert Bruce watching the spider, Joan of Arc listening to her voices.

With warmth and sympathy the grand tales are told. With charm and humor the personalities of their heroes unfold. With deft touches of color their times are re-created. And with rare understanding of her young readers the author presents to them great ideas and noble ideals in a way that they may understand and.enjoy.

Most of the heroes are historical. A few are legendary, or a mingling of the historical and the legendary. Each embodied the best in his people, or his people attributed to him their finest character at its highest level. So in reading about them a boy or girl learns much too about their nation's distinctive contributions to the world.